JOELLEN RUSSELL can still feel the terror of the Southern Ocean. In 1994, at the start of her career as an oceanographer, she spent two months there on a research voyage. It was a punishing trip. The winds consistently roared at near-gale force or worse, stirring up huge waves. "The waves were so big that our 300-foot ship would slide down them as if it were surfing and dig its prow into the next wave," she says. "The wave would fall on you like a mountain of black water."
Today, a similar voyage could well be even worse. The waves around Antarctica are growing bigger, because the westerly winds that circle the continent are shifting southwards and growing stronger. These speedier westerlies are making waves in more ways than one. The Southern Ocean might seem a world away, but what happens there affects us all.
That's because the Southern ...
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